President of German Chemical Society, Germany

He then joined the chemistry department of the Harvard University (Cambridge/ USA) for a postdoctoral stay in the group of Prof. Elias Corey. Urmann began his industrial career in 1993 as a medicinal chemist in the pharmaceutical research unit of Sanofi (Frankfurt/M.). During his career he could contribute to the discovery of several new development candidates in the area of Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Thrombosis. Since 2018 he is the Head of Diabetes & Cardiovascular External Innovation in Global Business Development & Licensing at Sanofi. In addition he is the president of the German Chemical Society (GDCh) for the years 2018/2019.

Prof. Dr. Johan Rockström is the Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Professor at the Institute of Earth and Environmental Science at Potsdam University. Rockström is an internationally recognized scientist on global sustainability issues, where he led the development of the new Planetary Boundaries framework for human development in the current era of rapid global change.

He is a leading scientist on global water resources, with about 25 years of experience from applied water research in tropical regions, and more than 150 research publications in fields ranging from applied land and water management to global sustainability.

Kumsal Bayazit

Chief Executive Officer, Elsevier, The Netherlands

Kumsal Bayazit was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Elsevier in February 2019. She has held multiple positions with RELX Group since 2004, most recently as Regional President Europe, Middle East and Africa at Reed Exhibitions.

Before joining Reed Exhibitions in 2016, Kumsal was RELX Group’s Chief Strategy Officer, responsible for driving strategic initiatives, technology strategy and portfolio management. Prior to that she served in several operational and strategic roles with LexisNexis.

Kumsal also chairs the Technology Forum at RELX Group and is a non-executive director at LSL Property Services plc. Prior to joining RELX Group in 2004, Kumsal spent several years at Bain & Company in their New York, Los Angeles, Johannesburg and Sydney offices.

Kumsal earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and is a graduate of University of California at Berkeley where she received a Bachelor’s degree in Economics with honors.

Keynote speakers

Prof. Dr. Fabio Aricò

Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy

Presentation Topic: Recent developments in green synthesis

Dr Fabio Aricò obtained his master’s degree in chemistry from the University of Messina in 1999.

In 2002 he was awarded a Ph.D. in Chemistry at Reading University; research focusing on macrocycle-polymer interconversion (2003). He then moved to University of Los Angeles California (UCLA) working on molecular machines and supramolecular chemistry in the laboratory of Sir. J.-F. Stoddart (Nobel Laureate 2016) as a post-doctoral fellow.

In 2005 he joined the Interuniversity Consortium of Chemistry for the Environment collaborating with the University Ca’ Foscari (Venezia) within the field of Green Chemistry. Since 2015 he is an associate Professor of Organic Chemistry at Ca’ Foscari University, his research interests encompass Green Chemistry, organic carbonates, renewable resources, new synthetic approach and chlorine-free chemistry.

Prof. Dr. Annemie Bogaerts

University of Antwerp, Belgium

She became a professor in 2003, and is full professor of physical chemistry at University of Antwerp, since 2012. From 2013-2016 she was Francqui Distinguished Research Professor, with limited teaching duties. She is head of the research group PLASMANT, with research activities on modelling of plasma chemistry, plasma reactor design and plasma−surface interactions, as well as plasma experiments for various applications, with major emphasis on environmental and medical applications.

Glenn completed a degree in chemistry at Durham University followed by a PhD in chemical engineering, specialising in polymer chemistry, at Newcastle University. Glenn ’s area of research is within all levels of green chemistry education together with related interests in utilising social media and game-based learning strategies to transform the student learning experience. Glenn regularly publishes in the chemical education and higher education scholarly literature and is currently chair of the Royal Society of Chemistry Higher Education Group. Glenn has recently been shortlisted by Times Higher Education in the ‘Most Innovative Teacher of the Year’ category in 2018 together with being recognised by Jisc as one of the top ten social media superstars in higher education.

Prof. Dr. Christian Oliver Kappe

University of Graz, Austria

Presentation Topic: Making pharmaceuticals in flow

Christian Oliver Kappe is Professor of Chemistry at the University of Graz (Austria) and Scientific Director of the Center of Continuous Flow Synthesis and Processsing (CC FLOW).

He received his diploma (1989) and his doctoral (1992) degrees in organic chemistry from the University of Graz and after two postdoctoral stays (University of Queensland and Emory University) returned to Graz in 1996 to start his indepenent acacdemic career and was appointed Full Professor in 2011. For the past decade the focus of his research has been directed towards flow chemistry/microreaction technology, encompassing a wide variety of synthetic transformations and experimental techniques.

Prof. Jan Kratzer

TU Berlin, Germany

Presentation topic: Start-ups and Sustainable chemistry

Prof. Dr. Jan Kratzer is Chair of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management and Managing Director of Center for Entrepreneurship at Berlin Institute of Technology, Germany. In addition, he is at the editorial board of Creativity and Innovation Management (CIM) and Journal of Product Management (JPIM).

His research is mainly on factors that drive entrepreneurial activities towards success among others research on networks of entrepreneurs, open innovation networks, entrepreneurship in life science, social entrepreneurship and online social networks. His work has appeared among more in Journal of Consumer Research, Economy and Society, Research Policy, Heath Policy, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Research-TechnologyManagement, Technovation, Journal of Mathematical Sociology, Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, International Journal of Project Management, Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, International Journal of Entrepreneurship Venturing.

Dr. Bradley P. Ladewig

Imperial College London, UK and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany

Prof. Dr. Naomi Shibasaki-Kitakawa

Tohoku University, Japan

in engineering from Tohoku University in 1994. The main research theme is to develop the reaction separation process that synthesizes high value-added substances such as food and medicine from unused biomass resources. Her research group reported that porous ion-exchange resins have high catalytic activity for the synthesis of water insoluble esters. They also have constructed and operated the practical production apparatus for biofuels and natural vitamin E (tocopherol and tocotrienol). Last year, Naomi received the Green Sustainable Chemistry (GSC) Award of the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

His research interests are in biocatalysis, directed evolution of enzymes and synthetic biology. He has published 270 papers/patents with an H-index of 53 and ca. 9,000 citations. He is a member of several Scientific Advisory Boards and consults widely. He has received many awards for his research achievements and currently holds an ERC Advanced Grant (2017-2022).

Prof. Dr. Karen Wilson

RMIT University, Australia

Presentation Topic: Photochemistry and photocatalysis

Karen has a BA (Hons) in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge (1992), an MSc with distinction in heterogeneous catalysis from the University of Liverpool (1993) and a PhD (1996) in heterogeneous catalysis and surface science from the University of Cambridge with Prof. Richard Lambert.

Following post-doctoral research at Cambridge (1996-98) and the University of York (1998-99) with Prof. James Clark, Karen was appointed to her first independent academic position at York in 1999. In 2009 Karen moved to Cardiff University where she was appointed to a Readership in Physical Chemistry, a post she held until 2013, when she relocated to Aston University as Professor of Catalysis and Research Director of the European Bioenergy Research Institute. In January 2018, Karen relocated to RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, where she is currently Professor of Catalysis.

Karen’s research interests lie in the design of heterogeneous catalysts for clean chemical synthesis, particularly the design of tuneable porous materials for sustainable biofuels and chemicals production from renewable resources. From 2011-2015 Karen held a Royal Society Industry Fellowship in collaboration with Johnson Matthey to work on the development of catalysts for biofuels production. She has authored more than 250 papers, 6 patents, has an h-index = 60 and was founding director of the “Global Bioenergy, Biofuels and Biorefining Network: GB3-Net”.

Prof. Dr. Ning Yan

Head of Green Catalysis Lab, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Prof. Ning Yan obtained his BS and PhD in Chemistry at Peking University in 2004 and 2009, respectively. He worked at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland as a Marie-Curie Research Fellow from 2009-2012. In July 2012 he joined the department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2018. Dr. Yan’s research interests include nanocatalysis and green chemistry. He also holds visiting professorship in Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics in China, Hokkaido University in Japan, and University of Toulouse in France.

ISC3 Innovation Hub Speakers

Daniel Büning, BigRep, Germany

Daniel Büning is an innovator, researcher, architect and university teacher. His work moves in the field of tension between digital technology, innovation, culture and politics.His studio NOWlab, which was co-founded in 2014, was taken over in 2016 by BigRep, an aspiring high-tech start-up from Berlin. With NOWlab @ BigRep, a unique innovation and creative hub has been created, full of dynamics and synergies within a technology company, which he leads as Managing Director.

His research as well as the work of his department NOWlab @ BigRep fuses in an innovative and visionary way the latest digital software (programming, modeling, simulation) with digital manufacturing processes (3D printing, robotics, CNC technology) as well as advanced and sustainable materials. In his daily practice Daniel deals with the scouting, the concept development and the implementation of innovation projects and their economic implementation in practice. The development of novel applications for the BigRep 3D printing technology is always the focus of his work.

His work has been awarded numerous prizes and scholarships: SDV Study Foundation ofthe German people, Fulbright Commission, FES Friedrich Ebert Foundation, MEXT scholarship of the Japanese government. Daniel is also a Fellow of the Competence Center of the Cultural and Creative Industries of the Federation.

Daniel is a sought-after speaker and has been invited several times as an expert in the field of "digitization", as well as "Industry 4.0" in the Bundestag

Abdelnasser Farrag,VWaste, Egypt

Abdelnasser Farrag is an Energy Engineer from Egypt. He currently pursues his master’s degree at TU Berlin. Abdelnasser has been always serious about climate change issues. Despite of his basic knowledge in Chemistry, he co-founded a chemical company “VWaste” which is based in Cairo, Egypt. In VWaste, the industrial orange waste is transformed into highly-valued products.

Andreas Förster, Director, ISC3 Innovation Hub, Germany

Dr. Andreas Förster studied chemistry and received his doctorate in physical chemistry from the University of Würzburg in 1997. Since 1997 he has been an employee of DECHEMA - Society for Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, where he heads the Department for Research Coordination and Conferences. In 2010 he became Head of ProcessNet, the German platform for process engineering, chemical engineering and technical chemistry, jointly supported by DECHEMA and VDI. Dr. Förster has many years experience in the identification of new trends in chemistry and chemical process engineering and in the promotion of innovation. He is a member of the board of the European Technology Platform SusChem since 2017 Managing Director of the Gesellschaft für Verfahrens-Technik – GVT and director of the International Sustainable Chemistry Collaborative Center since 2018. He has a broad international network of experts from industry and academia in the field of chemistry and chemical engineering.

Andrea Kurz,Brimatech, Austria

Andrea Kurz is Senior Market Researcher and Co-owner of BRIMATECH Services. She holds a degree both in Technical Chemistry and in Business Administration. In national and international R&D projects she is responsible for technology exploitation. Amongst other projects, she has been broker for ESA’s tech transfer department for seven years now. In this role she supports non-space industry and start-ups in ESA Business Incubators by identifying promising technologies and business models for innovation in the B2B sector.

Pablo R. Outón,Indresmat, Spain and Geleen, The Netherlands

Pablo is an entrepreneur with a broad and multidisciplinary background in Production, Quality and Research & Development. He has joined important multinationals (BASF, Merck), the most prestigious Spanish Research Centers (Institute for Polymer Science & Technology-CSIC, University of Barcelona) and Innovative SME's in the chemical sector. During his career, multiple experiences in different sectors have resulted in disruptive ideas for products made from Polyurethanes focusing on Construction markets.

After 12 years involved in R&D projects, Pablo founded INDRESMAT SL in 2017 (Barcelona, Spain). In 2018, he founded INDRESMAT BV (Geleen, Netherlands) due to its participation in “Redefining Chemistry”, a prestigious 2-year International Incubation Program carried out at Brightlands Chemelot Campus within one of the few chemical entrepreneurial ecosystems worldwide. INDRESMAT has recently received LIOF-LBDF and SME Instrument Phase-1 grants to develop EXTRU-PUR, a disruptive extrusion technology for Thermoset Polyurethane. During 2019, INDRESMAT will launch SAFE-PUR, a novel top class of insulating foams with highly improved fire safety.

Pablo studied Chemistry in the University of Barcelona and holds a Master in Polymers in the International University of Menendez Pelayo

Johannes Solzbach, Clustermarket, UK

Johannes Solzbach is co-founder and CEO at Clustermarket. Prior to co-founding Clustermarket in late 2015, Johannes worked in Corporate Finance for EY and Baader Bank.

Huib Adriaans, Brightlands Innovation Factory, The Netherlands

Huib has been involved in the start-up ecosystem since finishing his studies. Working at the corporate venturing department of Océ (a subsidiary of Canon) got him interested in start-ups and entrepreneurship. After a couple of years he decided to make the switch and started his own entrepreneurial journey by (co-)founding two new start-ups in the digital space. The start-ups didn't make it, but the experience and lessons learned were priceless. Now, he is using this experience at Brightlands Innovation Factory to attract start-ups to the Brightlands ecosystem and help them to bring their business to the next level(s)."